Dustjacket synopsis:
"For money, wrote Balzac, "people fight and devour one another like spiders in a pot." In House
of All Nations, the pot is an exclusive private European bank, and the spiders are a rich
mixture of high-stakes gamblers, tax evaders, and shady speculators, all united by their love of
money. They burn for it, hunger for it, and indeed would sell their souls for it had they souls to
sell. Leading them on the chase is the cynical and mercurial director of the bank, Jules
Bertillon, for whom every political or natural disaster is a potential shower of gold. The supreme
manipulator whose only principle is money. Bertillon is a master of the devious maneuver, and his
clients trust and even love him for it. In the end, he is the duper duped, but it is the clients
who pay: for Jules, unprincipled to the last, has not been so foolish as to believe in himself.

"Set in the Paris of the interwar period, House of All Nations is a vast panoramic
novel of the intrigues, swindles, and manipulations of this world on international fiance. "No
one ever made enough money," says Jules Bertillon at the outset of this story of greed and
power - and that is the leitmotif for the blackmailers, playboys, brokers, and bankers who
swirl through this multilayered book. Intent on their personal gain, they play out the turns of
fortune against a backdrop of worldwide economic depression and the rising tide of Fascism. Here
are the thirties brought to life - the decadence and indifference, the selfishness and
short-sightedness that would culminate in world war.

"First published in 1939, House of All Nations was greeted with great critical praise.
"Combined with her Hogarthian humor, brilliant vocabulary, high-keyed imagination, the result is
one of the most savage satires on 'the principle of money' since Balzac," said Time.
The New Yorker acclaimed it as a book "full of rich comedy, crowded with Balzacian
characters...a work of extraordinary talent."

First Paragraph:

They were in the Hotel Lotti in the Rue de Castiglione, but not in Léon's usual suite. Léon's
medicine case in yellow pigskin lay open, showing its crystal flasks, on a Louis XV chair. The
Raccamonds, man and wife, bent over this case and poked at it.

"He always travels with it: cowardice of the lion before a common cold, eh?" Aristide
reflected.

Marianne sniffed. "He's afraid to lose his money, that's all."

The white door opened a few inches and an immense head, with long black hair carefully brushed over
a God's acre of baldness, appeared in the crack. Clear brown eyes sunk in large sockets searched them,
forgave them. "Hello, Aristide! Just having a bath," said the head. "Wait a few minutes, will you?
Sit down, Marianne. Ring if you want anything. Excuse me." The door shut. In a moment, it reopened.
"Excuse me. How are you, Marianne? So you want some tea, some - cockta', sherry? Ring on the telephone.
I'll be with you in a minute."